PC Building Guide and Discussion #11 (everything is expensive...)

[flyingkiwi]

Just logged back into Steam after a while and found I still have $46 in my account. Tempted to put it towards Nier which I was initially planning to get on PS4. Though I feel like it'll run like arse on my 960.

Ah well, I'll give it a go and if it sucks there's always a Steam refund.

 

[SniperHF]

Sound Blaster Z installed, Small review mostly in comparison to the Xonar.

The Sound Blaster does a lot better with 2 channel audio tracks and putting them out a on 5.1. The sounds don't sound too flat or lose positional accuracy nearly as bad as the same feature did on the Xonar.

Both sound equally good in limited testing in games (without all the above features). I'll have to break out a shooter to really test it.

The Xonar's software had a much more intuitive feature for dragging and placing speaker locations, in the SB you just enter numbers.

The Xonar did not have automatic detection of headphone connections on the front panel. I suspect most people like this feature, the SBZ has it. But I generally don't like it since I usually leave them plugged in and switched between them as desired. Maybe there's a way to do this in the settings, I'll have to dig for it. I only see a way to do it for the back panel headphone jack.

+No stupid floppy power connector.

+SBZ has many more options in the settings to mess with microphone configurations. With the Xonar I was more application dependent.

I'm probably going to have to do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8TLmokNjuU
Since the red LEDs are messing with the feng shui of my blue LEDs

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Glad you're enjoying that card. Still considering buying it myself. Yay for a good recommendation!

 

[Devourers]

For anyone following Ryzen, here's a couple of pieces of information. It sounds like it's believed the main reason gaming performance is often lower than expected has to do with threads passing through the infinity fabric between CCX's (each Ryzen CPU has its cores divided between 2 CCX's). It appears that RAM speed has a very significant impact on this - and what little I'm seeing so far suggests that getting your RAM clocked high will do a lot to negate this problem. I'm sure that as games are optimized to allow Ryzen to better manage their threads, that things will improve too.

I've heard that too, but I've also heard getting higher clocked ram to work properly with Ryzen is a ***** as well unfortunately, but maybe some updates can change that.

Also, part of the reason the 7700k kills R7 is due to the higher clock speed of the CPU. An 1800X that can go 4.1ghz is basically a golden chip while a 7700k is stock 4.5ghz iirc. R5 might change that though, being that they aren't 8 core chips it may be easier to get a higher overclock.

There's also the quad cores which in theory should be even easier to OC and cheap as hell. To anyone building a PC currently, I'd definitely wait on the other Ryzen models to come out and be benchmarked and overclocked prior to upgrading. The value is simply unbeatable already, and if they can overclock well and fix the issue with higher clocked ram it would be almost stupid not to go AMD now. Even me being an intel fanboy, I'm very intrigued.

 

[Kestrel]

I've heard that too, but I've also heard getting higher clocked ram to work properly with Ryzen is a ***** as well unfortunately, but maybe some updates can change that.

Also, part of the reason the 7700k kills R7 is due to the higher clock speed of the CPU. An 1800X that can go 4.1ghz is basically a golden chip while a 7700k is stock 4.5ghz iirc. R5 might change that though, being that they aren't 8 core chips it may be easier to get a higher overclock.

There's also the quad cores which in theory should be even easier to OC and cheap as hell. To anyone building a PC currently, I'd definitely wait on the other Ryzen models to come out and be benchmarked and overclocked prior to upgrading. The value is simply unbeatable already, and if they can overclock well and fix the issue with higher clocked ram it would be almost stupid not to go AMD now. Even me being an intel fanboy, I'm very intrigued.

I've been seeing more people reporting decent RAM speeds in their builds. I think RAM is still definitely an issue, but it looks like it has been somewhat improved, and is expected to continue to be improved - hopefully that is correct!

I think for those that are just going to spend, and get what they want, Intel might still be the logical go to processor, but like you suggested, I think for those looking to get the most bang for their buck, or to possibly save on the CPU, and invest in other parts, AMD is looking like it might be the way to go.

 

[Devourers]

I've been seeing more people reporting decent RAM speeds in their builds. I think RAM is still definitely an issue, but it looks like it has been somewhat improved, and is expected to continue to be improved - hopefully that is correct!

I think for those that are just going to spend, and get what they want, Intel might still be the logical go to processor, but like you suggested, I think for those looking to get the most bang for their buck, or to possibly save on the CPU, and invest in other parts, AMD is looking like it might be the way to go.

Depends on how Ryzen 5 overclocks honestly. If it can get 7700k performance (Within 2-3% or perhaps better) at a fraction of the cost I think it'll work for both types of people. Even me as a big intel fan, I'd be hard pressed to turn down an AMD cpu that costs half the intel and performs at par, and on top of it has 6 cores versus 4.

The 1700X is great but underperforms in games due to the clock speed. I think the 4 and 6 core AMD chips may actually perform better in games. Time will tell, OC3D just received their review samples of R5 today.

 

[Kestrel]

Depends on how Ryzen 5 overclocks honestly. If it can get 7700k performance (Within 2-3% or perhaps better) at a fraction of the cost I think it'll work for both types of people. Even me as a big intel fan, I'd be hard pressed to turn down an AMD cpu that costs half the intel and performs at par, and on top of it has 6 cores versus 4.

The 1700X is great but underperforms in games due to the clock speed. I think the 4 and 6 core AMD chips may actually perform better in games. Time will tell, OC3D just received their review samples of R5 today.

I personally would be surprised if the Ryzen 5 chips get that close to the 7700K - but I'd be thrilled if they do. I just wish Ryzen 7 had been around when I built my computer a year ago. I knew it was on the horizon, but I just wasn't willing to wait that long. It would have still been more than adequate for gaming, and it would have been huge for some of the other stuff I do. Not that I can say that my 6700K is a bad processor for it But if I go through with running 2 or 3 servers off the machine (it's just a Plex server at the moment), along with the video encoding I already do, and the gaming I occasionally do, extra cores would have been nice.

 

[Sined]

God damn.
60FPS @ 4K is something else...

 

[Kestrel]

God damn.
60FPS @ 4K is something else...

4K gaming is something special, no?

 

[Sined]

4K gaming is something special, no?

Seriously, the 1080 Ti is just ridiculous.
So far all my SP games are 60FPS @ 4K and all my MP games are 144FPS @ 1440p.

 

[Kestrel]

Seriously, the 1080 Ti is just ridiculous.
So far all my SP games are 60FPS @ 4K and all my MP games are 144FPS @ 1440p.

I'm definitely not gaming at your levels... to be honest, I don't do very much gaming anymore... but even just my RX 480 at 4K on the few games I've tried it on has been a lot of fun. Your 1080 Ti would be that much more so.

 

[Devourers]

Not gunna lie, I'm jealous of anyone who has a 1080Ti build atm. It's just a ruthless card from NVIDIA, they're savages with that card Enjoy the 4k beastliness. I just lost my job so odds of building a new rig aren't on the horizon currently :/

 

[Kestrel]

Not gunna lie, I'm jealous of anyone who has a 1080Ti build atm. It's just a ruthless card from NVIDIA, they're savages with that card Enjoy the 4k beastliness. I just lost my job so odds of building a new rig aren't on the horizon currently :/

Sorry to hear that! I hope something comes along soon for you.

 

[Kestrel]

Here's a leaked review of the R5 1600 - it's a mixed bag, just as the R7 reviews would have you expect.

http://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-5-1600-review-leak/

When it comes to memory performance tests, even with further BIOS revisions rolled out by board vendors, there are still issues with support. The AMD Ryzen 5 1600 only managed to support max 2400 MHz speeds on a 3600 MHz memory kit. This led to inferior memory performance and latency on the AM4 tests. The site reports that they faced the problems on multiple boards including MSI and ASRock.

Gaming performance tests at 1080P show that the chip is faster than the Ryzen 7 1700 in most tests but doesn’t manage to beat the Core i7-6700K. At 4K, the differences become even small and we can’t see a large gap between Core i7-6700K and Ryzen 5 1600 except Metro Redux where there’s a gap of 15 FPS. Overall, users who play at lower resolutions will find Intel processors a better options and while Intel is leading the 4K charts, the performance difference is little while Intel chips do cost a bit extra.

In Multi-threaded benchmarks, the Ryzen 5 1600 manages to out-perform Intel’s Core i7-7700K with ease in CPU-z test. In WPrime 32M benchmark, the chip also manages to come close to the Core i7-7700K which is really impressive considering its $150 US less price tag. Same goes for Cinebench R15 where the chip is faster than the Core i7-7700K.

These chips seem to hold a TON of promise, if AMD can just resolve the RAM issues, and DX12 improves multithreaded gaming as much as it's supposed to. We just have to see if that happens, and the chips deliver on the promise.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Despite the issues, price to performance is still looking very good on the R5s

 

[Kestrel]

That's true... if I were buying today, the gaming quirks that have shown up so far would not stop me from buying AMD. I just want to be a little reserved in the things I say so that if someone else spends money based on what I say, they can't feel like I screwed them over

 

[Kestrel]

More evidence that proper optimization will pull Ryzen back to expected performance levels in gaming:

https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/247141-total-war-warhammer-will-also-receive-ryzen-patch

PCGames.fr tested the new 1.6.0 patch, and found a consistent 10 percent improvement on all three Ryzen 7 processors, as shown below:

Ryzen just might end up being a great bang for the buck gamer yet.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Goes to show what happens when you have actual good software and drivers. So glad it was just software issues and not hardware.

 

[Kestrel]

Still not a cheap processor, but cheap for what it is - NCIX has the R7 1800X on for $610 CDN today.

http://www.ncix.com/detail/amd-ryzen-7-1800x-processor-e1-139477.htm?promoid=1146

 

[Devourers]

Still not a cheap processor, but cheap for what it is - NCIX has the R7 1800X on for $610 CDN today.

http://www.ncix.com/detail/amd-ryzen-7-1800x-processor-e1-139477.htm?promoid=1146

Tbh I think the 1700X is way better value than the 1800X

 

[Kestrel]

Tbh I think the 1700X is way better value than the 1800X

I actually agree, and would go a step further and say the 1700 has the potential to be even better value.

 

[Dugray]

Tempted to buy http://www.ncix.com/detail/evga-geforce-gtx-1070-sc-f3-134666.htm?promoid=1652

 

[Devourers]

I actually agree, and would go a step further and say the 1700 has the potential to be even better value.

I'm inclined to agree with you, given that overclocking isn't exactly stellar anyways may as well just go for the 1700. As for the 1800X, the 1700X IMO is just too close in performance to the 1800X to merit getting the 1800X. Now if the 1800X was a solid overclocker and binner version of the 1700X (maybe it is, but since they OC like crap it doesn't matter tbh) I'd consider it.

Right now looks like the R7 series you can't go wrong regardless, but the line up gives increasingly less performance per value as you move up.

 

[Kestrel]

I'm inclined to agree with you, given that overclocking isn't exactly stellar anyways may as well just go for the 1700. As for the 1800X, the 1700X IMO is just too close in performance to the 1800X to merit getting the 1800X. Now if the 1800X was a solid overclocker and binner version of the 1700X (maybe it is, but since they OC like crap it doesn't matter tbh) I'd consider it.

Right now looks like the R7 series you can't go wrong regardless, but the line up gives increasingly less performance per value as you move up.

I can't confirm it, but what I heard was that binning to date was done based on chip voltage, more than by potential speed. But yeah - R7 just looks fantastic. I think they're actually going to do a fairly good job of giving fantastic options for every major budget level. I'm not interested in the R3's personally, but I think they'll make a great option for someone who is trying hard to game on a budget, and couldn't otherwise squeeze in a passable video card on, say perhaps, an i3 build.

 

[Devourers]

I can't confirm it, but what I heard was that binning to date was done based on chip voltage, more than by potential speed. But yeah - R7 just looks fantastic. I think they're actually going to do a fairly good job of giving fantastic options for every major budget level. I'm not interested in the R3's personally, but I think they'll make a great option for someone who is trying hard to game on a budget, and couldn't otherwise squeeze in a passable video card on, say perhaps, an i3 build.

Seems by the specs R3 may be comparable to a middle end i5 judging by the fact that it's still quad core. I could be wrong, no benches available to check yet, but if that's the case the value will be incredible.

150$ for a 1200X, if it's even close to a 4690k (doubt it touches a 7600k mind you) it'll still be incredible.